Coordinated allocation of conservation incentives and water management across a river basin under hydrological...

Water conservation incentives (i.e., payments or subsidies offered to water users to reduce consumption) are a promising strategy for enhancing water sustainability. This study presents high-resolution robust optimization models that integrate surface water, groundwater, and conservation strategies to enhance water availability and ecosystem resilience in river basins. The model is applied to a portion of the Red River Basin of the south-central United States, demonstrating how coordinated management and conservation policies can be evaluated under hydrological, geological, and conservation uncertainties. Our contributions include: (1) a detailed model for estimating instream water volumes across the basin; (2) a decision-support approach that yields robust solutions and quantifies trade-offs among competing socio-environmental objectives under uncertainty; and (3) prioritization of basin regions for targeted conservation implementation. Results indicate that coordinated basin-wide conservation in the Red River can significantly improve water sustainability while supporting ecological and agricultural needs.